Include Everyone in the Definition of Community Development

Let's not allow a federal program to dictate the definition of community development in the U.S. Since the passage of the Community Development Act of 1964, the term community development has become almost synonymous with the Community Development Block Grant. And since that program requires that the benefits accrue to people of low and moderate income, an undeserved stigma has been attached to the phrase community development.

It's a wonderful program and one that I've administered, but it shouldn't limit our idea of how community improvement works across the economic spectrum. And international community development has yet a third meaning, focused on infrastructure and organizing a society that can communicate, sell, and buy globally.

In the world-wide context, the definition of community development tends to be tied up in the idea of Western-style development. But retracing the mistakes of the "developed" world isn't necessarily the best way to move forward. World-wide, let's skip the stuff that made other peoples or other lands less healthy or less prosperous as a group.

So we propose that the definition of community development is anything that:

• Increases the appeal of a neighborhood to housing buyers or renters

• Rapidly recycles obsolete housing, suburbs, or commercial buildings through retrofit to meet current trends or through redevelopment into a new use

• Allows community residents to make a better living, over a longer period of time, with ample choices available for career-changers and part-time workers

• Uses land wisely, as if they weren't making any more of it

• Provides the everyday goods and services that people need within a short distance of all residences, and allows shopping for less routine purchases within a reasonable distance

• Cultivates a safe environment

• Makes the community accessible to all, whether they can drive or not

• Gives young and old alike ample opportunity for recreation and exposure to nature

• Works with nature to locate key human activities away from environmentally sensitive land and flood and fire hazard

• Increases the capacity of the community to discuss problems and issues openly and resolve them within a reasonable period of time in a democratic fashion

• Enhances the visual and sensory appeal of the community (which should be limitless)

• Expresses the fact that we value people more than cars

• Pushes us in the direction of good quality, transparent government that arranges for the necessary public services and keeps our infrastructure updated

• Avoids senseless use of scarce natural resources and pollution of our land, water, and air

• Organizes a metropolitan or micropolitan area for quick diagnosis of challenges to its competitive edge and taking collective action in a timely and friendly manner

It's a challenging agenda. So you can see that it takes people of all income levels, including low, moderate, and well, splendid.

If our recent economic problems teach us anything, it should be that no one is immune to the laws of cause and effect. Let's get busy trying to understand community development principles. And start reclaiming the phrase to its rightful complexity and richness.

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Thanks for learning about what community development really means.

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